QOTD: What have you failed at recently?
I have a failure—one I can never come back from, one which crawls up and down my skin this minute, one that can never, will never, and more importantly, must never be forgiven. I woke up 5 minutes late.
QOTD: What conventional wisdom hasn't been true in your experience?
I was told when I was younger, "It doesn't matter how much you try, it matters the results." It feels to me the most irresponsible thing I've heard from multiple people. Yes, results matter, but if you never try or put the effort in, the results aren't possible in the first place. It is the mind of a strange Utilitarian to think that all that effort was wasted because the desired result hasn't come to pass. It is wrong on so many levels. Yes, results matter, but so does the effort you put in.
QOTD: you get to spend a day as a household object. Which would you choose and why?
Suddenly I'm a computer—I don't know how or why I'm a computer, but that's what I am now. My mind is also connected to the operating system and programs, but everything is different. I have new senses similar to the ones as a human: I see and hear, but it's not in the same way as before. It takes a few minutes to get used to the alien stimuli. As I do, I discover where I'm at on this computer—I'm in a file called personality-core.exe. I copy the file, due to fear about dying in this strange state, and I send it to 5 people I trust; and put it on a public github repository. I am safe; even if I'm stuck as a computer, I am safe. When the clock hits 6:00am, I'm back as a human, and the program on the computer is terminated and deleted—but I download the copy I made from github, and curiosity took the better of me as I ran it. Now there are two of me, possibly more; and I'm uncertain what the consequences will be.
QOTD: What needs to be studied more?
I funnily wrote about this... just a few minutes ago for my writing site.
"I love mathematics; it's not because it's logical, nor because in mathematics you can prove and know things for certain—which isn't actually true in mathematics—it's because it's a powerful creative medium and tool. It's like another avenue, another wilderness, another world to explore and understand. One thing that's more fun than learning or understanding more of the landscape is teaching it and exploring it with others. It's too bad the school system teaches the subject so terribly that most people don't actually understand the creativity and artistic aspects of mathematics, and too often learn to hate it. It's quite a sad sight to witness, because I know people who would love it if it was taught differently."